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The « Service d'Observation de la Rade de Villefranche-sur-Mer » (SO-RADE) aims at the regular temporal steady of hydroclimat as well as abundance and composition of the settlements holo- and meroplanktonic. The Villefranche bay is historically recognized like favorable to study plankton. Daily observation of the macroplankton began in 1898 and is continued in 1917 with Russian biologist A. of Korotneff. In 1957, started hydrological measurements with the site called the Point B, coordinates GPS (system WGS 84) :
43° 41,10 ' N - 7° 18.94 ' E. The site was recognized by the PNOC (“Programme National d'Océanographie Côtiere”) in the topic "Long-term series", like essential originality of its environment and the length of the recordings already obtained.
Since 1995, for the physicochemical parameters, the Point B is included in the “ Service d'Observation en Milieu LITtoral” (SOMLIT), network labellized by INSU. It is thus connected to the seven other French marine stations which constitute this network to establish the fluctuations common to the various sites.
In parallel, Observation of Zooplankton and Phytoplankton concerns Observation of the Villefranche Bay.
Also, in the “Observatoire Océanologique de Villefranche-sur-Mer” (OOV), many scientific problems are attached to the SO-Rade. The bacteriological enumeration, study of the phycotoxin (in partnership with IFREMER), macro and mesoplanktonic settlements, are subjects depended on the observations carried out at the Point B.